Facebook finally adds end-to-end encryption to its social chat app

Facebook has added a new layer of security to their popular messaging service which adds end-to-end encryption to messages, essentially making them exclusively available to not only the two accounts involved in the communications but their individual devices as well. This extra security isn’t enabled by default though and has to be turned on by the user when selecting the new “secret” option when composing a chat.

Facebook’s new Secret Conversations feature is powered by the Signal encryption system which is also used by the company’s WhatsApp service and Google’s new Allo chat app. Both of these have the added security enabled by default however instead of the opt-in format Facebook has chosen.